De-Ritualization and Middle Power Legitimacy: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Mark Carney’s Davos Address on the End of Rules Talk
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31185/wjfh.Vol22.Iss3/Pt1.1924Keywords:
Political discourse analysis; Diplomatic legitimation; Middle power foreign policy; Multilateral coalitionsAbstract
Existing scholarship treats political language in order-decline debates as commentary on material change rather than constitutive social action. No prior study has operationalized the deliberate breaking of a diplomatic ritual as a measurable discursive event. This study examines how Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Davos address, January 2026, performs such a break. Three questions guide the analysis: how Carney reframes rules talk as ritualized compliance and dismantles it; how he justifies a shift toward flexible issue-based coalitions; and how he redefines sovereignty as coercion-resistance capacity. The corpus is the complete official transcript analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis, Legitimation Analysis, and Speech Act Theory. Findings identify five de-ritualization moves, four coalition legitimation strategies, and a four-step sovereignty reframing converging in a portable truth script for middle powers: name reality, apply standards consistently, build functional institutions, and reduce coercive leverage. Future research should test this protocol across comparable middle power speech contexts.
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